Prior conveyor systems include apparatus known from EP 687508 of the present applicant. The sorting machine described therein comprises, substantially, two endless conveyors, i.e. a first roller conveyor and a second roller conveyor starting above an end part of the roller conveyor, having grippers as carrier elements which grippers each consist of a combination of two gripper halves for carefully transferring articles, objects or products such as fruit, more in particular apples, pears, paprika's, kiwis, peaches et cetera, from the roller conveyor and conveying these further to the proper unloading station for further discharge and packaging. Especially in the market of sorting delicate products such as fruits, this machine has yielded good results because with these grippers, damaging the products to be transferred is prevented and avoided to a large extent.
However, it will be clear that with objects of different sizes, gripping may still lead to damage. With large fruits for instance, the springy, clamping action of the gripper halves may produce sleepy spots, while small fruits such as kiwis, after being transferred, can still roll from the halves as the ends of the gripper halves contact each other at their bottom sides, thereby gripping the kiwis as such less well.